Final Examination in Understanding the Self:

Integrative Paper

As a person who values my personal identity, I tend to

reflect about my life often. I realized that my social, sexual,

material, spiritual, political and digital self vary from one

another and I show myself differently for each aspect. On my

social self, I tend to be an extrovert and I love going to places

with people that I love. My sexual self is my masculinity and it

showcases me as a person who loves to do masculine stuffs. My

material self can be shown through my techy self who enjoys

discovering new things related to photography. My spiritual self

is about my strong belief and faith with God that trusting him

and his perfect timing I my life is the best decision I ever

made. My political self is about my neutrality, by not idolizing

any political candidate and aspiring to have good governance. My

digital elf is about presenting myself in the social media while

being lowkey about the personal happenings in my life.

Generally speaking, social self refers to how we present

ourselves in our society, it includes culture and roles of

oneself. In my family, I am the second-born. I am a brother to my

two younger siblings and as a brother, I always make sure that

they can lean on me whenever they need me. Based on Erikson’s

Psychosocial development, I realized that I am now on the stage

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of young adulthood, my psychosocial crisis is intimacy vs

isolation, my strength is love and my environmental influence are

lover and friends. As a social human being, I commit myself to

other people and at this age, I tend to socialize more.

The sexual self primarily refers to how I engage my sexual

orientation and gender preferences. I am naturally born as a male

and I act as a man. My primary and secondary sex characteristics

are aligned with one another. Biologically speaking, my anatomy,

hormones and chromosomes were male assigned at birth. My gender

and sexuality are the same. I am usually seen as dominant and

independent just like how a man should be. My dopamine,

serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin levels are also felt when

something makes me happy like when I buy something to myself or

whenever I am laughing with my partner.

My material self explains me as someone who loves technology

and photography. I am someone who is often on my phone, not just

scrolling but capturing moments in my daily life. I deeply

understand the Theory of Meaning of Material Possessions by

Dittmar. I also learned that there are many functions that

material goods can fulfill and I realized that it is indeed

important to give importance to material things but don’t get too

attached to it. Based on the material self by William James in

symbolic functions, I can relate myself such that I currently

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have four tattoos. For me, my tattoos represent the things I

firmly believe in. Materialistically, I wear simple yet decent

clothes based on every occasion. I believe that I should dress

accordingly not to impress but to express.

My spiritual self is one of the most essential parts of

myself. It is about using my conscience to guide my actions. It

is seeking the meaning of life through my beliefs and religion

and practices. Since I was young, I was enlightened that God is

our savior and we owe our life to him. I am born a Catholic and

we believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and we must obey

him to have eternal life. As a result, my everyday life revolves

in knowing that I should act based on the common good. I always

keep in mind that I must always think of the will of other people

and not just my own.

My political self involves my will to experience good

governance regardless of who runs pr wins in the election.

Politically speaking, I am not into idolizing specific persons

just because of the good things they’ve done or the perfect image

they have to portray. I am not impressed by educational

backgrounds or personal achievements but how they treat their

constituents with or without anyone looking. It is about good

governance for the people. Our Filipino values that are passed to

us like family orientation and hospitality plays a huge role in

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deciding our political decisions such that I believe that we are

one as a country and we all deserve equality and a good

governance.

My digital self is how I present myself in the digital

world. I post some updates about myself but I don’t post my

personal problems in social media. I interpret my opinions but I

don’t belittle or disrespect anyone. I use social media smartly.

As a conclusion, I can say that I know myself better than

before. I am a simple person with big dreams and no matter how I

choose to show myself, I am still going to achieve my goals in

life. A peaceful life is my top priority.